39.0°,
Fair What fell from the sky in Valley Stream?
Holes in two roofs remain a mystery; FAA denies damage is from planes
Two unexplained holes in their roofs and thousands of dollars worth of damage are frustrating residents of two Valley Stream homes. The Farella and Grace families have more questions than answers nearly two weeks after they woke up to the damage on Sept. 9, with no clue as to exactly what happened.
The damaged houses sit next to each other on Home Street in the northeast corner of the village. “The thing that’s most troublesome to me is that nobody has any explanation on what could have caused it,” said Lois Farella, one of the homeowners.
Lois and her husband, Frank, were awakened shortly after 3:30 a.m. two Sundays ago by a loud noise, she said. She looked around the house and went outside to see where the sound might have come from, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. It was a calm night, Lois recalled, with almost no breeze.
A few hours later, she called her next-door neighbors, Anne Marie and William Grace. It was then that the two families realized that both of their homes had been damaged, but they didn’t know what caused it. The Farellas, who have lived in their house for 45 years, discovered a hole about the size of a basketball in the roof near the front of the house, while the Graces, 41-year residents of their home, found a much smaller hole at the ridge of their roof.
After a report was filed with the Nassau County Police Department, roofer Bryan Lanzello was called to inspect the damage. “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” he said. “Once I jumped up on the roof and looked around … the strongest part of [the Graces’] roof is the ridge, and the ridge vent is one piece, so for it to chop through and do clean cuts like that, I didn’t know what it was.”
On Sept. 11, inspectors from the Federal Aviation Administration conducted an investigation to see if the damage was caused by frozen leakage from airplane toilets, known rather euphemistically as blue ice, but found no evidence of it. FAA spokeswoman Arlene Salac explained that officials looked at the flight tracks over the neighborhood during the time frame the Farellas gave them. “The closest aircraft was three miles away, and would not have been able to drop anything on the roof of the residence,” Salac said. “At this point, we cannot say that the damage was caused by blue ice or anything else from an aircraft.”
The Graces, however, weren’t satisfied by the FAA’s conclusion. William Grace, a former chief of the Valley Stream Fire Department, said that the inspectors only examined the damage to his roof from his front lawn and backyard, and did not climb up for a closer look. He added that they didn’t interview him or his wife.
Although the Graces don’t know for sure when their roof was damaged, William said he believes it occurred between 6 and 7 a.m., the time he heard a noise on his roof — not at 3:35 a.m., as the Farellas claim.
“The FAA is a government agency; I thought they were on our side,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like they’re on our side — it seems like they’re defending the airlines.”
Grace said that FAA inspectors should check to see if there are any missing pieces from airplanes that were in the area that morning and widen their time frame for the search. “Why wouldn’t they investigate it a little further?” he asked.
“It was something that fell from the sky,” Lanzello said. “It had to have a lot of blunt force to get through that roof like that.”
Lanzello said he found a water stain in the attic of the Graces’ home, near the hole, as well as damage to the insulation in both homes. But FAA officials who went inside the Farellas’ home said they found no stains that would indicate that the damage was caused by blue ice. The homes’ living areas were not affected.
Because the Farellas’ roof suffered extensive damage, they will replace the entire roof, which will cost thousands of dollars, according to Lanzello, who owns Lanzello Roofing and Remodeling Inc. Tarps were draped over the holes at both homes on Sept. 14.
The Farellas filed a homeowners’ insurance claim to replace their roof. It was their first claim in more than 40 years with the insurance, Lois Farella said.
Grace said he plans on paying for his roof repairs himself, and will have the entire length of the roof’s ridge line replaced. As it happens, Lanzello, who will be working on both houses in the coming weeks, replaced the Graces’ entire roof about 18 months ago.
“I have to incur the cost because of somebody else’s negligence,” Grace said.
